OMR - Optical Music Recognition

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 May 04 - 12:49 AM

Any curent updates on this topic? I'm dnlding the sharpeye SW which is still there.

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Sep 99 - 08:25 PM

Received the following note from a friend who is using SharpEye extensively (and extensively) for choral/classical music.

John

One of the software packages that came with my HP scanner is called 'PrecisionScan Pro' . It allows one the ability to select the scanned output type. I select Black and White Bitmap Raster which opens a small window with a slider for selecting the B & W threshold level. I find that a position 20 to 30% lower than the auto level will considerably improve SharpEye's accuracy.

I am unable to determine who owns the 'PrecisionScan Pro' . It may be a collection that HP has put together or it could be a propriety line. I don't know.

The important issue is that you must have the ability to set the B & W level as well as selecting the file type so that it is a B & W bitmap raster. Don't use vector type. It is hopeless.

Regards Bill

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 08 Sep 99 - 01:09 AM

Joe, SharpEye costs $50 but none of the features are disabled, hence you can really put it through its paces before parting with any of the folding stuff. As for the Imprimatur? I'd like a few more people to try it. IMHO it is quite productive, but the learnung curve is quite steep for the scanning part of the process. The music correction part of Sharpeye is actually quite good. One feature that I do like is the visual indication that individual bars do not make musical sense in terms of the sum of the note values. I must add this to the wish list for NoteWorthy Composer.

Alan, I've just looked - my scanner is a HP 5100C. As to which method is better I suspect will depend upon each person's ability and credit card limit, plus factors such as quality of original. I guess some of my fervour stems from the fact that scanners are now starting to reach a significant proportion of households. I suspect that scanner hardware quality is not a major determinant for success in this process, but that will remain guesswork until lore people have tried.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 07 Sep 99 - 07:50 PM

G'day,
By cooincidence I've just downloaded Sharpeye having learned about it from another source. I also have an HP 5200 scanner so I'll keep you posted on progress. This week's a write-off though.

You can probably scan from within Paintshop pro or Photoshop, but that probably works through the HP software anyway. Keep you posted on that too when I have time.

I have a MIDI keyboard connected to my PC & I've found that if you just want a melody line, a common situation with folk music, it's quicker to play the tune into your sequencer program than scanning & correcting. And I'm not really a keyboard player.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Sep 99 - 04:46 PM

What's the registration fee for SharpEye? It isn't freeware, is it?
John, have you given it your final blessing?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: Alice
Date: 07 Sep 99 - 11:01 AM

John, when I have time I can email you some. I am assuming you want it in a PC format. Can you open a Photoshop 3 file?

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 07 Sep 99 - 08:33 AM

I haven't been killed in the rush of scanned music being sent to me. I'm going on leave at the end of this week, so just thought that I'd give a brief progress report on scanning and SharpEye.

The scanning process seems to be the most critical issue. It would take above average persistence to get this right with the software which I am using (HP Precision Scan on a HP 5200 scanner). If anyone has this particular combo I can give specific tips. I dislike the HP software - it probably caters for mainstream colour scanning OK, but has bugger all documentation for this type of application and has bad habits such as not allowing you to save settings for your next session. And it is designed for scanning for dummies with too little obvious control in the hands of users.

Give SharpEye a reasonable quality image to process and I believe that it is quite an asset, that's quite easy to use. After the hols I might tackle this the other way around - I'll send out some scanned images and some of you lovely folk can have a play with it.

In the meantime can anyone advise me if I can use any other software to do the actual SCANNING on the HP scanner I am using?

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 19 Aug 99 - 07:06 PM

Still looking for volunteers!

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 19 Aug 99 - 03:40 AM

WOWWW!!! Sharp Eye is damn good. I've only had a little play, but where I've started with a good quality original the results are excellent. In fact I've just done a piano and lyrics score that needed NO EDITING of bum notes at all.

Anyone out there with a scanner and some good quality folk songs in print (preferably missing the tune in the database). Please send me a couple and I'll give it some more tests. I don't have permanent access to a scanner but the following parameters seem to be most critical:
- Must be printed music, not handwritten.

- Should be scanned as monochrome line art, about 300 dp1

- MUST be a mono BMP or TIFF file

- One file per page

- Preferably no other crap like illustrations on the page - It will handle reversed out images (white on black) or landscape, but I'll leave that experimentation until some other time.

Any volunteers please send some scans to [e-mail]

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 16 Aug 99 - 05:02 AM

Alan, thanks for the link - I've now been to the site and downloaded the software. I was VERY impressed by the lack of crap, but loads of helpful information before you even start.

Lesley, you're a scurrilous flattere, and you'll go far. I won't ask what type of gratification you refer to, more out of fear that my stocks may be limited. Your analysis is impressive and I'd be keen to hear more from you. The friend that referred it to me uses it mainly for choral scores, which will be one of my consuming passions henceforth. He states 'It shits all over Midiscan'.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: Lesley N.
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 10:25 AM

Wow - neat - another scanning program. Just tried it - scanned something in from Lucy Broadwood and made a midi. Since I use midiscan/smartscore let me give my intial reaction.

It gave me an error message when I tried to drag the tif file onto the icon, but when I opened it from inside the program there was no problem. The quality of the scan was the same as midiscan - pretty much the same amount of errors came up. I did like the fact that Sharpeye flags those measures that have mistakes so they are more readily apparent than in midiscan. I had trouble changing the direction of the note (I probably need to play with it more) and I don't like the fact you have to delete a note and add another rather than being able to change the note. There are several instances where it takes two steps to do something that take one in midiscan. There may be short cuts I didn't see offhand.

When I brought the midi into cakewalk (which I use clean up, add the additional verses and change the instruments) the midi needed less note editing than a midiscan file usually does - but for some reason the key signature was not placed at measure one. I suspect this is because there were irregular staves. It was easy to fix. However the music in cakewalk is messier than I normally get out of midiscan. It sounds the same however, and the only people this will bother are people seeking to print music from midis...

This is all from one run - I certainly plan to use it more. Overall my impression is that it is an easier program to become immediately productive with than midiscan/smartscore. Is it good enough for me to change? Gosh it's hard to teach old dogs new tricks... but I'm intrigued enough to keep using it. At $50 it's a lot cheaper than Midiscan/smartscore. If I were Roger Ebert I'd give it a thumbs up. If I were rating it on a 5 star scale - well I'll wait until I've used it more to give it a final rating.

John, my dear, you are a treasure! You've given me more gratification than I've had in years!

Subject: RE: Help: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: Allan C.
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 09:12 AM

SharpEye

Subject: OMR - Optical Music Recognition
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 08:55 AM

This is the Holy Grail for many people, and there have been a number of discussions on this topic here in the past. I haven't been able to find it on the Web, but an otherwise reliable informant tells me that he has used a new(ish) program called #EYE (SHARPEYE). He maintains that he has tried and rejected Midiscan and a variety of others but insists that #EYE is actually worth using, is Shareware, and costs $50 US for full registration.

My limited Web search skills have failed me. Any help in tracking this down would be appreciated.

Regards
John